Pragmatics of nano power radios

This is a brief note about high level concerns with nano power radios, solar powered without batteries.

Don’t rely on this, study it yourself, especially until I add proper links.  Some of it is just crude notes, even speculation.

Other References

A note at Mouser about ultra low power mcu design.

Context: nano power

The power supply:

• provides low average current, around 1uA
• has no large reserve
• is is expected to provide zero current often (say every night)

For example:

• solar power with a capacitor
• no battery
• indoor light
• solar panel smaller than a credit card

Overview

• radio is duty-cycled
• a voltage monitor/power supervisor and load switch chip provides clean reset/boot
• boot sequence must be short and monitor mcu Vcc
• use a power budget for design
• use synchronization algorithms
• testing is hard
• over voltage
• energy harvesting

Duty-cycled radio

The radio is sleeping most of the time.  When sleeping, a low-power timer runs to wake the system.  The sleeping radio cannot wake the system when it receives.

Example: the system may sleep for a few seconds, and be awake (with radio on) for about a millisecond.  That is, the duty cycle is around 1000.

Voltage monitor/Load switch

A microprocessor (in a radio SoC) needs a fast-rising voltage to boot cleanly.  Otherwise it may enter a state where it consumes power without booting. (Fibrillating?)  It may be in that state for a long time.  The solution is to use an external voltage monitor aka power supervisor aka reset chip.  E.g. TPS3839 (ultra-low power of 150nA.)

You can’t just connect the voltage monitor to the reset line of the mcu.  Otherwise, the mcu will still consume power while its reset line is held in RESET state. (Between the time voltage is high enough for the voltage monitor to have active outputs say 0.6V and the time the voltage is high enough to run the mcu say 1.8V.)  An mcu may draw a fraction of a milliamp while held in reset.

So the voltage monitor drives a high-side load switch that switches power (Vcc or Vdd) to the mcu.  I use the TPS22860.  (You can switch ground i.e. low-side with a NMOS mosfet but it’s not so easy to design your own high-side switch.  You can’t switch the low-side of an mcu because many pins may leak to ground?)

Voltage monitor hysteresis and boot sequence

The voltage monitor asserts its Out (sometimes call Not Reset) at a certain threshold voltage but then unasserts if the voltage falls below the threshold a certain amount called the hysteresis.  While the mcu is booting, it must not use so much current that Vcc falls below the hysteresis.  The boot sequence typically does a bare minimum, then checks Vcc, and sleeps until Vcc is much beyond the the minimum.  That is, allowing time for the ‘challenged’ power supply to catch up and store a reserve.  Only then does the software proceed to use the radio, duty-cycled.

You could use a voltage monitor with higher hysteresis.  But they don’t seem to make them.  The hysteresis of the TPS3839 is only 0.05V.  You can play tricks with a diode/capacitor on the input of the voltage monitor to make it seem to have a higher hysteresis (to delay longer before un asserting.)  And there are application notes on the web about adding hysteresis to voltage monitors.  But they seem to apply to older voltage monitor designs, and don’t seem to apply to the ultra-low power TPS3839 (which samples Vcc.)

Also, you could design your own voltage monitor with more hysteresis.  For example, see the Nordic solar powered sensor beacon.  That uses a few mosfets to provide a 0.2V hysteresis (say booting at 2.4V and resetting at 2.2V).  Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have exactly documented how the design works.

Power Budget

A power budget calculates the average current of a system, given certain phases of certain durations, where each phase uses certain devices/peripherals.

Here the main phases are:

• sleeping (say 1.5uA for 1 second)
• radio and mcu on (say 6 mA for 1 milli second)

You can almost ignore any phases where only the mcu is active, it should be a small portion of your budget.

A discussion at Digikey.

Synchronization algorithms

These make your units wake at the same time, so they can communicate with each other.

A beacon is usually unsynchronized.  The thing that hears a beacon (e.g. a cell phone) has  enough power to listen a long time.  You also might not need to synchronize if you have a “gateway” that is always powered and listening.  (See Zigbee.)

This seems to still be a research topic, there is much literature to read and few open source code examples.

Testing is hard

With such a challenged, nanopower supply, testing is hard.  A bug may exhaust power so that the system brown out resets, losing information about what happened.

Most hardware debuggers make the target consume more power than the power supply can provide?  TI seems to have ultra-low power debugging tools, but I haven’t studied them.

You can implement fault/exception handlers that write to non-volatile flash so that you can subsequently connect to a debugger and read what happened.   Default handlers typically just infinite loop (which will brown out reset.)  Typical handlers will do a soft reset.  Unless your app makes a record or communicates that, you might not even know the system reset itself.

Agililent (formerly Hewlett-Packard) sells expensive instruments for monitoring power consumption.  These may tell you you when (in relation to other events) you are consuming more power than you expect, but not exactly why.

Over voltage

A solar cell is a current source, and provides a variable voltage.  Voc is voltage open circuit (when your capacitor is fully charge.)  It can exceed the Vmin of your radio (typically 3.6V.)

Voltage regulators (such as shunt regulators) that prevent that are themselves current wasters.

You can choose a solar panel whose Voc is less than the Vmin, but there are few choices in that range (Voc < 3.6V, Vope around 2.4V, for indoor light.)  Or you can require that your solar panel never be exposed to strong light.

I haven’t found a zener diode that would clamp the voltage to 3.6V, and not leak much, at such nano currents.

Energy Harvesting

This is another buzzword, but good to search on.  It often means: with a single coin cell battery.

Energy harvesting chips are available.  They solve some problems you might not have, such as over-voltage protection, or voltage boosting.

It often refers to other power sources such as heat or vibration.  Those power sources are usually even smaller than solar (light) power, but solar power is episodic (diurnal.)

Solar power in different setting differs by orders of magnitude.  Direct sun is ten times stronger than outdoor, blue-sky shade, which is ten times more than strong indoor light, which is ten timer more than  dim indoor light.

 

 

Writing custom libraries for Energia (Arduino)

This is just about the pragmatics of: where do I put source files so that they are a shared library?

Custom: one you write yourself.

Library: a set of C++ source files (.h and .cpp) that you want to share among projects.

The simplified Energia/Arduino view

Outside the simplified Energia/Arduino world, libraries would be in a separate, shared directory and they would be pre-compiled into an object and separately linked into your projects.  In the Energia/Arduino world, that is all hidden.

Also, in the Energia world, a library seems to be a zipped directory of source files that follow some conventions that identify the version and documentation of the library.   So you can share the library.  I don’t know what the conventions are.  But if you are going to share your custom library, you should follow the conventions, and zip it up.  Then others can use the simplified user interface for installing zipped libraries.  Here, I don’t bother with the zipping.

Creating a custom library

Briefly, you just need to create your source files in the place that Energia looks.

Find where your sketchbook directory is:  In Energia choose “Sketch>Show Sketch Folder.”  Expect a file browser dialog (the Finder on the Mac) to show you the directory.

You will see a sub directory named “libraries”, and it will probably be empty.  (I don’t know where Energia keeps all the other pre-installed libraries.)

In that directory, create a directory with the name of your library e.g. “PWM”.

In the “PWM” directory, create your .h (and maybe .cpp) files, e.g. “pwm.h”

Now switch back to Energia and select “Sketch>Include Library>”   Expect a hierarchal menu to appear.  Expect to see “PWM” in the “Contributed libraries” section of the menu.

You can also choose “Sketch>Include Library>Manage Libraries”.  Expect a browser kind of window to open.  You should be able to browse to a line saying “PWM version unknown INSTALLED”.  (In my opinion, this should not be called “Manage Libraries” because it seems all you can do is view a list of the libraries.)

(Note that Energia expects at least one source file in your library directory.  Until then, Energia may give an error “Invalid library found in….”)

Referencing the library

In your main sketch “#include <pwm.h>”

Then define an instance of the PWM class and call its methods.

Developing and managing your library

You can just edit the files in place, using another editor.   When you use Energia to “verify” the main sketch that uses the library, it will recompile your changed library.

By managing I mean: copy the files out of the sketchbook folder to a safer, more shared place.  The sketchbook is in /Users/foo/Documents/sketchbook (on a Mac).  I prefer to put them under source control in a “git” folder, or in the “Dropbox” folder, so when I am done developing, I copy the library folder somewhere else.

I suppose you could use git in that directory, and when you are done, commit and push that repository to a your shared (master) repository on github.

Brief Summary

A library is just a named directory in the directory “sketchbook/libraries”.  You can create a library yourself using a file browser and editor.

Some notes on Panasonic Amorton solar cells

These are just rough notes that might help someone else in their personal electronic projects.  About Amorton’s indoor solar cell products, AM1456, AM1417, etc.

These solar cells are like what you see in calculators.  They are only a few square centimeters or larger.  Typically like pieces of glass.

For low light

These indoor products are for low light.  They are characterized for as little as 50 lux, which is not much light, typical of an indoor space with average lighting.  A room with a sun facing window, on a clear or overcast day, typically has much more light.  Even typical artificial lighting provides this much light.

The power available at these lighting levels is only a few uA.  Also, the Vope (which is the operating voltage, which really means the maximum power voltage, see MPPT) is a fraction of the Voc (voltage open circuit)  in much stronger light.  For example, if the panel has four cells which each deliver a maximum of 0.6 volts, the Voc might be 2.4V but the Vope in 50 lux might be only 1.4V.

You should design your circuits to operate around Vope, since if you design to operate at the Voc, it will take strong light, and the power delivered will be smaller than you could get at Vope.

(PowerFilm does not characterize their film solar cells at such low light levels.  But they recently started selling LL3-37, which IS targeted for low light.)

Availability

Some of the glass ones are available from Digikey and Mouser.  The film versions don’t seem to be readily available in small quantities to retail buyers.

Solderability

The models that are commonly available have pre-soldered wires, AWG 30.  I have had good success in unsoldering the wires, leaving the solder ball, and soldering on a different wire (including tinned piano wire.)

Surface Mount

I also tried unsoldering the wire, cleaning the pad with flux and desoldering braid, and trying to reflow surface mount.  With very poor results (say one success in three.)  The manufacturer said this is not a supported use.  After the failure, you see a brown surface that solder won’t stick too.  Evidently the ‘interface’ between the solder and the semiconductor is very thin and its solder ability easily destroyed.

Some of the product variations for AM1456, AM1417 have no pre-soldered wire, but only conductive paste, and they are available only in large quantities (AFAIK.)  I don’t think these are intended for reflow soldering either.

Amorton recently started selling model AM1606, which IS intended for surface mount (SMD.)  Available from Mouser.

Durability

They seem relatively robust.  I have dropped them from desktop height onto concrete and they don’t seem to break.  I have had a few, small, conchoidal chips out of the edge, seeming cosmetic, not affecting the power out.

Under extreme mechanical stress, the soldered pads occasionally detach at the ‘interface’.  See above re surface mount.

Safety

The glass edges are not sharp.  I have never cut myself on the edges.  I suppose the manufacturing process somehow rounds the edges a little, even though they appear quite square.  However, I suppose the edges are intended to be enclosed in a frame.

But since they are small and glass, they ARE a hazard for small children, and if they should break into pieces.